Moments
by Nea Poulain
Summary: Luna paints and tells Harry they have nargles at home. Harry goes out in mysterious dates. Ginny find the double meanings in the songs her mother like. Hermione does not want a big party for her birthday. Moments. / Translation
**Moments**

 _"So no one told you life was gonna be this way  
_ _Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.  
_ _It's like you're always stuck in second gear  
_ _When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year, but  
_ _I'll be there for you"_

 _The Rembrandts_

* * *

 **I.**

* * *

Luna had a curious calligraphy, like a little child's; she decorated the points above the 'i' with a star. Besides, she had the habit of using muggle pens because she insisted it was much more practical that using a feather and an inkpot.

"We have a tie," she announced. "Three for a quiet reunion, three for party."

"It's going to be a quiet reunion!" Hermione exclaimed. "I don't know why we are even voting. Nobody can respect my wishes?"

"You don't turn twenty-five all years of your life…" That was the same excuse Ron had used every time Hermione complained about her birthday. Just Neville and Ginny supported him: Neville because he was literally dying to see Hannah organise a party in the Leaky Cauldron and Ginny because she insisted her best friend should have the biggest party ever.

"You should listen to Hermione," was the only thing Harry suggested.

"You don't talk about me as if I didn't exist!" Hermione spitted.

"You see, Ron?" Harry resisted the urge to laugh when he saw Hermione's face. "She gets all angry and you know what happens when she is angry."

"A tie. So, who decides?" asked Luna, who seemed to have ignored all the previous. She was drawing in the napkin where she had written the votes.

"Me and we don't talk more about this," Hermione answered. "A quiet reunion. End of discussion. Can it be in your apartment?" She looked down to Luna and Harry. Luna didn't wait to hear Harry's opinion before nodding

"By the way, Harry, when we're meeting the mysterious girl?" asked Ron.

Harry tried to wink while he was drinking from his butterbeer, but he failed and finally chose to not give an answer. That was a question he didn't want to answer yet, really.

"Ron," he heard Luna's voice. "Anybody has told you you've got a lot of nagles in your mind? How awkward, they're not common on this time of the year."

* * *

 **II.**

* * *

When he arrived, all the lights were off, except for the one in the living room's corner that Luna used to paint. Luna only kept a chandelier there and she was sitting in front of her last painting.

"Can you see with that light?" he asked.

"No," she answered, looking away from the painting one moment. "Do you like it?"

Harry went close to the painting. It was a Luna's typical one. The painting's bottom were in flames and, at the front, there was the portrait of a woman with blue hair. Luna had just started painting the woman's dress. Harry squinted when he recognised the woman.

"Did you use Ginny as model?" he asked

"Yeah. She didn't like the blue hair," Luna answered. "I told her she should paint it that way because it looks good. What do you think?

"It's… curious," said Harry, finally.

"You and Ginny are now taking like normal people, don't you?" Luna asked, wetting the brush. "What do you think about a yellow dress? Although it could be peach, too…"

"Ginny and I have always talked like normal people…"

"Well, I never!" Luna seemed not to believe him. "So, yellow or peach?"

"We haven't dated in four years," Harry reminded her. "Peach? What kind of color is that?"

"You were two years avoiding the other," Luna answered. "The color of a peach!"

"That's not true…"

"Yes, yes it is true. So you're back to normal, then?" answered Luna at the moment she started to paint again. The dress, at Harry's eyes, weren't peach. "By the way, you have to clean the dining room before Hermione's birthday."

"Ginny and I are just friends and I'd already cleaned the dining room two days ago," Harry complained.

"It's full of wrackspurts," Luna told him, "we cannot eat in peace there. By the way, how your date went?"

* * *

 **III.**

* * *

"Want some tea?" asked Luna when he came out of his room. She were on the kitchen's bar with Neville.

"No, thank you," he answered. "Hi, Nev."

Poor Neville did have a cup of tea in front of him. Nobody had warned her about how bad Luna's tea was. An insult to the good taste.

"I was just telling Neville I wanted to paint a Crumple-Horned Snorkack," Luna said; "I've never painted one."

"Did you finish Ginny's portrait?"

Luna nodded.

"Although, at the end, the dress is so yellow…" she complained. "Noticeably, paiting it peach was a bad idea with all the flames. The dress had to contrast."

Luna had painted portraits of all of them. Harry had ended in green hair and with crooked glasses. In another painting, Hermione was backwards and the only clue to know it was her was her enormous brown hair; Ron appeared in the same painting, side face, looking al Hermione, with his ginger hair brighter than ever. Finally, she had painted Neville with a strange plant in bright colours and herself with yellow flowers instead of hair.

"Can I see it?" Neville asked.

"On the balcony," Luna answered. "I don't the nargles near it yet. They certainly don't like paintings."

Neville nodded, as he had understood everything.

"By the way, Harry, Hannah send her greetings," Neville said. "She told me you don't go anymore to the Leaky Cauldron."

"Tell her I'm sorry," Harry answered. "I've got a lot of work to do."

"He says that to everyone," Lune excused him, "but actually he has _mysterious_ dates." She actually draw the quotation marks in the air while Harry was cursing internally. Luna always spoke the truth. He was going to answer when Luna saw him trying to comb himself and smiled: "You've got another, today?"

* * *

 **IV.**

* * *

"It's horrible," Hermione said. "How you mother can like her, Ginny?"

"Maybe it's because she never find the double meaning in 'my burning cauldron of love'," Ginny answered.

Harry raised one eyebrow, trying to guess about what the hell they were talking when he heard Celestina Warbeck's voice singing one of her famous love songs. He found Ron hidden in the kitchen, reading The Daily Prophet.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," Ron answered, putting down the newspaper, letting Harry looked at his face. He was shocked. "Where were you?" he asked. "They've been analysing Celestina's love songs… more than one hour!"

"Maybe she have to do a song about wands," suggested Luna, in the living room. "It would be a success."

"Yeah, sure," Ginny said. "Something like 'wands swollen of love'."

"Don't you see it? Don't you see it?" asked Ron.

"Yeah, I see it…." No, not really, he didn't see the problem. It seemed like Ron was exaggerating.

"Where the hell were you?" asks Ron.

"I went out. For dinner," Harry excused himself.

"With your mysterious girl?" Ron asked. "Oh, come on! Luna has already told us all you've got mysterious dates, don't dare to deny it. Why you don't want to tell about them?"

"Well… I…" Harry ran his hand through his hair. He was going to answer whatever thing it crossed his mind when they heard a scream in the living room.

"I've got it! I've got it!" It was Ginny's voice. "'Wands swollen of passion for your burning cauldron of love', next Celestina's successful song."

Ron faked a vomit.

* * *

 **V.**

* * *

"This pasta wasn't made by Ron," Luna accused. "It would taste like garden gnome if this was you're doing, Ron. No offense."

"None taken."

"Hermione, I told you: you haven't had to do anything," Luna complained. "It's your birthday. Besides, I've done my pumpkin pie, surely you like it."

"It's the only think he learnt how to do," Ginny said. She had brought the rest of the diner. "Really, you are all a bunch of morons. Six people and only two of us can cook something actually edible." She was in the kitchen, helping Neville to fix something. "Don't you dare to complain, Hermione! The only thing you can cook is that pasta."

Harry had bought the elf wine. He had offered to cook something although he hadn't got the slightest idea of cooking but Ginny had told him nobody wanted to eat tragedies.

"Oi, Ron! Careful with my painting!" Luna exclaimed when she say Ron looking at her last painting very close to it.

"Is it my sister with blue hair?" he asked. "Ginny, blue hair looks well on you!" he shouted.

"Ron, come right here and get this dishes!" Ginny commanded. "I'm not painting my hair in blue!"

"You'd steal all of the attention at the Holyhead Harpies' matches," Hermione said.

Then, somebody knocked at the door.

"We're not waiting for anybody else, right?" Neville asked. "Because I suspect we don't have enough food…"

"Eh… no…" said Harry. He was sure they weren't expecting anybody alse. "I get the door," he said, but nobody payed attention to him. Most of his friends in the kitchen, Luna loosing nargles in the balcony.

When he opened the door he found exactly what he wasn't expecting to. The exact person he didn't want to see in that precise moment.

"Eh, I'm sorry… I just wanted to give you… Is this a bad time?"

"A little bad, yes..."

"I brought you flowers because you honestly have the worst taste for them. Tulips."

"Harry?" he heard Hermione's voice. "Who is it?"

"Eh… nobody."

"Nobody? Great, now I'm nobody, Potter. Just great. And I brought you flowers!"

"Malfoy?" Hermione had gotten close to the door and she had said the surname of the blonde young man who was in front of harry with a bunch of flowers.

Harry didn't dare to look back to Hermione. Or the others.

"Oh, great," Malfoy muttered.

Then, there was a very long silence, very uncomfortable while Harry grabbed the tulips, which seemed like snob flowers to him. Almost like the peacocks on Malfoy's garden. Luna was the only one who were brave enough to say something.

"You all remember Harry was dating a mysterious girl?"

* * *

 **This is an EWE and it was a birthday gift for a friend. Originally, when I wrote it in Spanish.**

 **Last but not least, English isn't my mother tongue (it's Spanish, Mexican Spanish) and although Cambridge Certificates swear I deserve a C1 (I honestly still doubt it) sometimes my brain gets all wrong and puts everything in the wrong order when I'm writing (which ends up the right order… if I were writing in Spanish, which is never the case). So, if you found grammar, spell, whatever mistakes, feel very free to tell me.**

* * *

 _Andrea Poulain_

 _Original: October 26th, 2015_

 _Translation: May 19th, 2016_


End file.
